1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to power management techniques and, more particularly, to a token-based power control mechanism.
2. Description of the Related Art
Power management techniques in electronic systems may not only reduce the power consumption of the system but may also improve the system performance. In various systems, a predetermined amount of power is provided to each of the different devices within the system. The system may include a power controller and a monitoring mechanism to monitor the power provided to each of the devices to prevent the power supply from providing too much power to any one device. For instance, the monitoring mechanism may detect when a power limit has been exceeded in one of the devices and may initiate, in conjunction with the power controller, corrective actions to decrease the power supplied to the device. Also, the monitoring mechanism may detect when a device is in a sleep mode and may adjust the power supplied accordingly. However, typical power management techniques do not effectively manage the power distribution in a system, and usually do not provide an adequate balance between system performance and power management.